Alma Lutz was born and brought up in North Dakota, graduated from the Emma Willard School and Vassar College, and attended the Boston University School of Business Administration. She wrote numerous articles and pamphlets and for many years was a contributor to The Christian Science Monitor. Active in organizations working for the political, civil, and economic rights of women, she was also interested in preserving the records of women's role in history and serves on the Advisory Board of the Radcliffe Women's Archives. Miss Lutz is the author of Emma Willard, Daughter of Democracy (1929), Created Equal, A Biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1940), Challenging Years, The Memoirs of Harriot Stanton Blatch, with Harriot Stanton Blatch (1940), the editor of With Love Jane, Letters from American Women on the War Fronts (1945) and the author of Susan B. Anthony, Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian (1959). Lutz and Marguerite Smith, a librarian at the Protestant Zion Research Library in Brookline, Massachussetts, shared their lives from 1918 until the latter's death in 1959. Their lifelong relationship began when they roomed together at Vassar. They shared a Boston apartment and a summer home in the Berkshires, Highmeadow, Berlin, N.Y., not far from Susan B. Anthony's birthplace in Adams. Lutz and Smith worked in the National Woman’s Party. They travelled together, visiting Europe several times in the 1950s. When Smith died in 1959, Lutz struggled with her grief: “It’s a hard adjustment to make, but one we all have to face in one way or another and I am remembering that I have much to be grateful for.”Together from 1918 to 1959: 41 years.Alma Lutz (March 2, 1890 – August 31, 1973) Marguerite Smith (died in 1959)

Alma Lutz (1890-1973) was the author of “Susan B. Anthony, Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian” (1959). Lutz and Marguerite Smith shared a Boston apartment and a summer home in the Berkshires, Highmeadow, Berlin, NY 12022, not far from Susan B. Anthony's birthplace in Adams. Lutz and Smith worked in the National Woman’s Party. They travelled together, visiting Europe several times in the 1950s. When Smith died in 1959, Lutz struggled with her grief: “It’s a hard adjustment to make, but one we all have to face in one way or another and I am remembering that I have much to be grateful for.”

Much of the bitterness of the war years, along with D.H. Lawrence's disenchantment with English narrow-mindedness, can be found in what is perhaps the novelist's greatest exploration of homosexual subject matter, Women in Love. Here Lawrence and Frieda are depicted as Rupert Birkin and Ursula Brangwen in a tale based partly on Lawrence's clamorous relationship with the writer Katherine Mansfield, her husband, the literary critic John Middleton-Murry, and Lady Ottoline Morrell. It was during the composition of Women in Love that Lawrence, frustrated by his failure to forge a deeper bond with Murry, evidently had a sexual relationship with a Cornish farmer named William Henry Hocking in the town of Tregerthen. The short-lived affair was the culmination of a long-standing struggle with homosexual feelings. "I would like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not," Lawrence wrote to a friend in 1913. "I believe the nearest I've come to perfect love was with a coal-miner when I was about 16.”

PlaceIt is the house in which D.H. Lawrence was born in 1885 and one of the four houses the family occupied in Eastwood. Like its sister site Durban House Heritage Centre it belongs to D.H. Lawrence Heritage and is managed by Broxtowe Borough Council. Visitors enter the museum through the house next door, through the museum shop. The house has been laid out in the style of a late XIX century working class miner’s house, with the furniture being mostly from the family of the women who founded it. There are a few original items from Lawrence’s family; the artifacts are as close to the 1880s as possible and from Nottinghamshire to make the contents as authentic as possible for the period. The house is set out as it was thought to have been when the Lawrences lived there. Visitors are given a guided tour which takes approximately 45 minutes. The significance of each room (parlour, kitchen, communal yard, washhouse, parents’ bedroom, children’s bedroom and attic) is explained and questions encouraged. There is a small exhibition of Lawrence’s early original water colour paintings and a DVD room that starts the tour giving basic information on his life in Eastwood and thereafter. Photocopies of his later paintings are also displayed. A recent addition to the collection was Lawrence’s original gravestone, which has been on display since September 11, 2009, the anniversary of his birthday.

PlaceD. H. Lawrence Heritage Centre was formally known as the Durban House Heritage Centre and was the sister site of the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum in Eastwood, near Nottingham. Both sites formally went under the name of D.H. Lawrence Heritage. The D.H. Lawrence Heritage Centre contained an exhibition on the social history of Eastwood during the time that the writer lived there, including information on the educational system, mining, trams, retail along with D.H. Lawrence and the people who were affiliated with him. In addition there was an art gallery, a bistro, conference rooms, civil wedding, funeral, birthday and education facilities.

LifeWho: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930) aka D.H. LawrenceD.H. Lawrence was a novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter. His collected works, among other things, represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, some of the issues Lawrence explores are emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. In March 1912 Lawrence met Frieda Weekley (née von Richthofen), with whom he was to share the rest of his life. Six years older than her new lover, she was married to Ernest Weekley, his former modern languages professor at University College, Nottingham, and had three young children. She eloped with Lawrence to her parents’ home in Metz, a garrison town then in Germany near the disputed border with France. Lawrence and Frieda returned to Britain in 1913 for a short visit, during which they encountered and befriended critic John Middleton Murry and New Zealand-born short story writer Katherine Mansfield. While writing “Women in Love” in Cornwall during 1916–17, Lawrence developed a strong and possibly romantic relationship with a Cornish farmer named William Henry Hocking. Although it is not clear if their relationship was sexual, Frieda said she believed it was. After being discharged from a sanatorium, Lawrence died March 2, 1930 at the Villa Robermond in Vence, France, from complications of tuberculosis. Frieda Weekley commissioned an elaborate headstone for his grave bearing a mosaic of his adopted emblem of the phoenix. After Lawrence’s death, Frieda lived with Angelo Ravagli on the ranch in Taos and eventually married him in 1950. In 1935 Ravagli arranged, on Frieda’s behalf, to have Lawrence’s body exhumed and cremated and his ashes brought back to the ranch to be interred there in a small chapel amid the mountains of New Mexico, while instead the original tombstone was later taken to Eastwood.

House: D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) and Frieda returned to Britain in the summer of 1914, upon the outbreak of war, and stayed at 9 Selwood Terrace, Kensington, London SW7 3AT (Charles Dickens once lodged at number 11). During this time he married Frieda. The house was put up for rent a couple of years ago, with an asking price of £1,750 a week.

PlaceD.H. Lawrence and Frieda lived at 1 Byron Villas, London NW3 1AX, for a few months in 1915. A blue plaque marks the spot. After D.H.Lawrence lived at 32 Well Walk, London NW3 1BX, in 1917. Well Walk takes its name from the chalybeate spring which brought fame and fashion to the area. The faded gentility of the 1930s Hampstead was caught by Vita SackvilleWest in her novel, “All Passion Spent.” In 1930 the whole area between New End and Gayton Road east of High Street, and around Perrin's Court and Holly Bush Vale on the west, was occupied by “skilled workers or similar,” as was South End Green. D. H. Lawrence lodged from 1926 to 1927 at 30 Willoughby Rd, London NW3 1RU, and similarly had shown “how depressing and void he found the 18th-century charm of Hampstead.”

LifeWho: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930)In March 1912 Lawrence met Frieda Weekley (née von Richthofen), with whom he was to share the rest of his life. Six years older than her new lover, she was married to Ernest Weekley, his former modern languages professor at University College, Nottingham, and had three young children. She eloped with Lawrence to her parents’ home in Metz, a garrison town then in Germany near the disputed border with France. Their stay there included Lawrence’s first encounter with tensions between Germany and France, when he was arrested and accused of being a British spy, before being released following an intervention from Frieda’s father. After this incident, Lawrence left for a small hamlet to the south of Munich, where he was joined by Frieda for their "honeymoon,” later memorialised in the series of love poems titled “Look! We Have Come Through” (1917.) 1912 also saw the first of Lawrence’s so-called "mining plays,” “The Daughter-in-Law,” written in Nottingham dialect. The play was never to be performed, or even published, in Lawrence’s lifetime. From Germany they walked southwards across the Alps to Italy, a journey that was recorded in the first of his travel books, a collection of linked essays titled “Twilight in Italy” and the unfinished novel, “Mr Noon.” During his stay in Italy, Lawrence completed the final version of “Sons and Lovers” that, when published in 1913, was acknowledged to be a vivid portrait of the realities of working class provincial life. Lawrence, though, had become so tired of the work that he allowed Edward Garnett to cut about a hundred pages from the text. Lawrence and Frieda returned to Britain in 1913 for a short visit, during which they encountered and befriended critic John Middleton Murry and New Zealand-born short story writer Katherine Mansfield. Lawrence was able to meet Welsh tramp poet W. H. Davies, whose work, much of which was inspired by nature, he greatly admired. Davies collected autographs, and was particularly keen to obtain Lawrence’s. Georgian poetry publisher Edward Marsh was able to secure an autograph (probably as part of a signed poem), and invited Lawrence and Frieda to meet Davies in London on 28 July, under his supervision. Lawrence was immediately captivated by the poet and later invited Davies to join Frieda and himself in Germany. Despite his early enthusiasm for Davies’ work, however, Lawrence’s opinion changed after reading “Foliage” and he commented after reading “Nature Poems” in Italy that they seemed “so thin, one can hardly feel them.”

Restaurant/Bar: The Tinner's Arms is a traditional Cornish pub in Zennor, Cornwall. The name is derived from the Tinners, with records of tin extraction in the area dating back to Tudor times. D.H. Lawrence stayed at the Tinner's Arms in 1916 with his wife Frieda, while looking for a cottage to rent. They eventually found Higher Tregerthen. The pub sign pictures a tin miner at work, testimony to its origins. It is the only pub in the village.

PlaceIt is located opposite St Senara's Church and was supposedly originally built in 1271 to house the masons building the church. There is some disagreement about the age of the building as English Heritage believes it was probably built around the early XVIII century and extended in the XIX and XX centuries. "The building is built of granite rubble with granite moorstone dressings. Grouted or slurried scantle slate roofs. Dressed granite stacks over the original gable ends." It originally had a two-room plan with a larger hall/kitchen to the right and a parlour over lower ground to the left. There may have been an unheated middle room as there is a small blocked window to the right of the doorway. The two rooms have been consolidated into one and the building was extended in the XIX century to the left at right angles to the front. It is described as "all low beams and dark wood" with a "warm fire in the winter", and retains a medieval ambiance. Its specials are "Tinner's" and "Zennor Mermaid" (Sharp's Special). The Daily Telegraph notes its "sleepy, timeless quality and the way it's just not changed in centuries." Next door is White House, originally named Bos Cres, or "house in the middle", a Grade II-listed building dated to 1838 and restored in 2005, promoted as accommodation with the pub. The AA notes its "pigeon breast with mushrooms and tarragon sauce; Terras Farm duck breast with braised peas and new potatoes; chocolate fudge cake with clotted cream; or 'Moomaid' ice cream made on the local farm." The Good Pub Guide ranks it 4.5 stars of 5 saying it has "enjoyable ploughman's with three cornish cheeses and home-baked bread, long unspoilt bar with flagstones, granite, stripped pine and real fires each end, back dining room, well kept ales such as St Austell, Sharps Doom Bar and Wadworths 6X from casks behind counter, farm cider."

LifeWho: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930)When D.H. Lawrence arrived in Zennor with his German wife, Frieda, in 1916 he thought he had found paradise on earth: “It is a most beautiful place. A tiny granite village nestling under high, shaggy moor-hills, and a big sweep of lovely sea beyond.” The dream was to turn sour for the Lawrences – wrongly suspected of spying for Germany, they were ordered to leave Cornwall 18 months later – but the landscape remains as inspiring as he described it. From the Tinners Arms, where the Lawrences put up while they looked for a cottage to rent, the route crosses prehistoric field systems where Lawrence himself liked to toil when not writing (he completed “Women in Love” here). As you walk eastwards, the cottage he and Frieda rented, Higher Tregerthen, Zennor TR26 3BP, lies to the south between Lower Tregerthen farmstead and the B3306. The route takes you on to the coast – where the Lawrences were accused of signalling to German submarines – and back along the South West Coast Path to Zennor Head. As the tubercular genius said, this place “isn’t really England, nor Christendom. It has… that flicker of Celtic consciousness.”

Accomodation: Fontana Vecchia is the oldest house on the east side of Taormina, Sicily. Named by its most famous tenant, D.H. Lawrence, Fontana Vecchia was years later repeatedly sprinkled about in Truman Capote’s writings.

PlaceBuilt in the mid-XVII centuryTo this day, Fontana Vecchia remains as bewitching as it was in Lawrence’s time. Thousands of tourists each year take the short walk from Taormina just to glimpse the villa from the street below. Built into the side of the mountain, the villa’s stone walls are a half-meter thick. Many of those stones were taken from an ancient Roman aqueduct. The villa faces southeast, so there are few days of cold wind, even on the chilliest winter days. Because of its thick walls, the temperature inside is comfortable year-round. When Lawrence lived in the house (1920-1922), it was located in a field of orange and lemon groves. A winding dirt road led to town. Thirty years later, Truman Capote moved into the villa.

LifeWho: Truman Streckfus Persons (September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) and John Paul "Jack" Dunphy (August 22, 1914 – April 26, 1992)When Jack Dunphy met Truman Capote in 1948, Dunphy had written a well-received novel, “John Fury,” and was just getting over a painful divorce from Joan McCracken. In 1950 the two writers settled in Taormina, Sicily. Ten years older than Capote, Dunphy was in many ways Capote’s opposite, as solitary as Capote was exuberantly social. Though they drifted more and more apart in the later years, the couple stayed together until Capote’s death. During the early XX century Taormina became a colony of expatriate artists, writers, and intellectuals. Albert Stopford grew roses in his Edwardian garden; D.H. Lawrence stayed at the Fontana Vecchia from 1920 to 1922. (He wrote a number of his poems, novels, short stories, and essays, and a travel book, “Sea and Sardinia.”) Thirty years later, from April 1950 through September 1951, the same villa was home to Truman Capote, who wrote of his stay in the essay "Fontana Vecchia." Also Tennessee Williams, Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais visited the place. Charles Webster Leadbeater, the theosophical author, found out that Taormina had the right magnetics fields for Jiddu Krishnamurti to develop his talents, so the young Krishnamurti dwelt here from time to time. Halldór Laxness, the Icelandic author and Nobel Prize winner, worked here on the first modern Icelandic novel, “Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír.” By this time Taormina had become "a polite synonym for Sodom" as Harold Acton described it. Later, however, after WWII, Acton was visiting Taormina with Evelyn Waugh and, coming upon a board advertising “Ye Olde English Teas” he sighed and commented that Taormina “was now quite as boring as Bournemouth.”

Accomodation: “Here we are, in our own house—a long house with no upstairs—shut in by trees on two sides.—We live on a wide verandah, flowers round—it is fairly hot—I spend the day in trousers and shirt, barefoot—have a Mexican woman, Isabel, to look after us—very nice. Just outside the gate the big Lake of Chapala—40 miles long, 20 miles wide. We can’t see the lake, because the trees shut us in. But we walk out in a wrap to bathe.—There are camions—Ford omnibuses—to Guadalajara—2 hours. Chapala village is small with a market place with trees and Indians in big hats. Also three hotels, because this is a tiny holiday place for Guadalajara. I hope you’ll get down, I’m sure you’d like painting here.—It may be that even yet I’ll have my little hacienda and grow bananas and oranges.” – (letter dated 3 May 1923, to Kai Gotzsche and Knud Merrild, quoted in Knud Merrild’s book, “A Poet and Two Painters: A Memoir of D.H. Lawrence.”)

Place“Lawrence went to Guadalajara and found a house with a patio on the Lake of Chapala. There, Lawrence began to write his “Plumed Serpent.” He sat by the lake under a pepper tree writing it. The lake was curious with its white water. My enthusiasm for bathing in it faded considerably when one morning a huge snake rose yards high, it seemed to me, only a few feet away. At the end of the patio, we had the family that Lawrence describes in the “Plumed Serpent,” and all the life of Chapala. I tried my one attempt at civilizing those Mexican children, but when they asked me one day, “Do you have lice too, Niña,” I had enough and gave up in a rage. At night I was frightened of bandits and we had one of the sons of the cook sleeping outside our bedroom door with a loaded revolver, but he snored so fiercely that I wasn’t sure whether the fear of bandits wasn’t preferable. We quite sank into the patio life. Bynner and Spud came every afternoon, and I remember Bynner saying to me one day, while he was mixing a cocktail: “If you and Lawrence quarrel, why don’t you hit first?” I took the advice and the next time Lawrence was cross, I rose to the occasion and got out of my Mexican indifference and flew at him.” – (Frieda Lawrence, “Not I, But the Wind…”, (1934)) The house the Lawrences rented was at Zaragoza #4 (since renumbered Zaragoza #307) and became the basis for the description of Kate’s living quarters in “The Plumed Serpent.” The Lawrences lived in the house from the start of May 1923 to about 9 July that year. Interestingly, the house subsequently had several additional links to famous writers and artists. Immediately after the Lawrences departed, the next renters were American artists Everett Gee Jackson and Lowell Houser, who lived there for 18 months. They did not realize the identity of the previous tenant – “an English writer” – until the following year. Their time in Chapala is described, with great wit and charm, in Jackson’s “Burros and Paintbrushes” (1985.) Jackson visited Mexico many times and made several return visits to Chapala, including one in 1968 when he, his wife and young grandson, “rented the charming old Witter Bynner house right in the center of the village of Chapala. It had become the property of Peter Hurd, the artist…” In 1923, Bynner and Johnson stayed at the Hotel Arzapalo. In 1930, Bynner bought a home in Chapala (not the one rented by Lawrence) and was a frequent winter visitor for many years. Over the years, the house on Zaragoza that Lawrence and Frieda had occupied was extensively remodeled and expanded. The first major renovation was undertaken in about 1940 by famed Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Another large-scale renovation took place after the house was acquired in 1954 by American artist and architect Roy MacNicol. In the late 1970s, Canadian poet Al Purdy, a great admirer of Lawrence (to the point of having a bust of Lawrence on the hall table of his home in Ontario), wrote a hand-signed and numbered book, The D.H. Lawrence House at Chapala, published by The Paget Press in 1980, as a limited edition of 44 copies. The book includes a photograph, taken by Purdy’s wife Eurithe, of the plumed serpent tile work above the door of the Lawrence house. The town of Chapala today would be totally unrecognizable to Lawrence, but the home where he spent a productive summer writing the first draft of “The Plumed Serpent” eventually became the Quinta Quetzalcoatl, an exclusive boutique hotel.

LifeWho: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930) aka D.H. LawrenceD. H. Lawrence, together with his wife Frieda, and friends Witter Bynner and Willard (“Spud”) Johnson, visited Mexico in March 1923, initially staying in Mexico City. By the end of April, Lawrence was becoming restless and actively looking for somewhere where he could write. The traveling party had an open invitation to visit Guadalajara, the home of Idella Purnell, a former student of Bynner’s at the Univeristy of California, Berkeley. After reading about Chapala in Terry’s “Guide to Mexico,” Lawrence decided to catch the train to Guadalajara and then explore the lakeside village of Chapala for himself. Lawrence liked what he saw and, within hours of arriving in Chapala, he sent an urgent telegram back to Mexico City pronouncing Chapala “paradise” and urging the others to join him there immediately. Lawrence and his wife Frieda soon established their home for the summer in Chapala, on Calle Zaragoza. In a letter back to two Danish friends in Taos, Lawrence described both the house and the village. Life was not without its incidents and travails. Frieda, especially, was unconvinced about the charms of Chapala. Instead Witter Bynner and Robert Hunt made frequent visits to a second home in Chapala, Mexico. Their home (on the square at Galeana #441, the street name was later changed to Francisco I. Madero) was purchased from Mexican architect Luis Barragán in 1940 and was on the town’s plaza, a short distance from the lake. Hunt restored the house and, in 1943, added an extensive, rooftop terrace, which had clear views of Lake Chapala and near-by mountains. It became Bynner and Hunt’s winter home. Bynner spent much of the 1940s and early 1950s there, until he began to lose his eyesight. He returned to the USA, received treatment, and traveled to Europe with Hunt, who by the late 1950s and early 1960s took increasing responsibility for the ailing poet. Upon Bynner’s death, John Liggett Meigs and Peter Hurd, together, purchased Bynner’s house in Chapala. Along with the house, Bynner had included its content in the transfer of ownership. John described there being only four buildings on the block where the house was, and said that the house had two floors, the rooftop terrace that Hunt had added, and a “tower” overlooking Lake Chapala. The other buildings on the block included a “wonderful cantina,” which became a supermarket; another two-story house, next door, with a high wall between that house and Bynner’s house’s courtyard; and a two-story hotel on the corner. However, after John and Hurd bought Bynner’s house, they discovered that the owners of the hotel had sold the airspace over the hotel, and, one time, when John arrived, he discovered a twenty foot by forty foot “President Brandy” advertisement sign on top of the hotel, blocking his view of the lake. John said that was when he and Hurd decided to sell the place.

PlaceThe 160-acre (0.65 km2) property, originally named the Kiowa Ranch, is located at 8,600 feet (2,600 m) above sea level on Lobo Mountain near San Cristobal in Taos County, about eighteen miles (29 km) northwest of Taos. It is a 4.2 mile drive from the boarded-up historic marker and turnoff on route NM522 to the locked gate of the ranch. It was owned by Mabel Dodge Luhan as part of more extensive holdings nearby, although it had been occupied by homesteaders and several structures existed on the property dating back to the 1890s. In giving it to Frieda Lawrence (after Lawrence himself declined), it became first the summer home of the couple and then Frieda’s home until her death in 1956. It was closed to visitors from 2008 to 2014 for repairs, but re-opened to the public in March 2015. While the couple spent a relatively short time there, the ranch became the only property that they ever owned during their marriage and it became a place of rest and relaxation, where Lawrence wrote much of his novel, “St Mawr” and began “The Plumed Serpent,” during five months of the summer of 1924. Aldous Huxley is known to have visited the Lawrences at the ranch. By October 1924, Lawrence and Frieda left for Mexico and it was while they were in Oaxaca that he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The couple returned to the US, and by April 1925 they were back at the Ranch where they spent the summer, Lawrence continuing work on the novel which became “The Plumed Serpent.” However, with his better health and their six-month visa about to expire, Lawrence was determined to return to Europe. They left Taos on September 11, Lawrence’s 40th birthday, and settled in Italy. Although he never returned to New Mexico, in a letter to Hon. Dorothy Brett in December 1929 from Bandol, France Lawrence expressed some interest in doing so: "I really think that I shall try to come back in the spring. I begin to believe that I shall never get well over here." However, D.H. Lawrence died in France on March 2, 1930 and his body was buried near Vence. In 1935, at Frieda’s request, his remains were exhumed and then cremated and his ashes were brought to the ranch by Angelo Ravagli (Frieda’s lover and the man who became her third husband in 1934) with the intention that they be buried there. After Lawrence’s death, Frieda returned to the ranch and lived there with Ravagli, who constructed the white plastered 12 ft. x 15 ft. Memorial building in 1934. At her death in Taos in 1956, Frieda was buried on the ranch property and she bequeathed it to the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque, the present owner. Her grave is located just outside the Memorial building.

LifeWho: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930) aka D.H. LawrenceThe Lawrences arrived in the US in September 1922. Here they encountered Mabel Dodge Luhan, a prominent socialite, and considered establishing a utopian community on what was then known as the 160-acre (0.65 km2) Kiowa Ranch near Taos, New Mexico. After arriving in Lamy, New Mexico via train, they bought the property, now called the D.H. Lawrence Ranch, from Luahn in 1924, in exchange for the manuscript of “Sons and Lovers.” Lawrence stayed in New Mexico for two years, with extended visits to Lake Chapala and Oaxaca in Mexico.

House: D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) and Frieda travelled on to England for the last visit on July 29, 1926, arriving in London on the evening of the following day. With the help of Millicent Beveridge, Lawrence had rented a top-floor flat at 25 Rossetti Garden Mansions, The Lodge Cheyne Court, Chelsea, London SW3 5TP, for the whole of August; it was close enough to the Victoria and Albert Museum for Frieda to spend time with her son, Monty.

Historic District: Vence is a commune set in the hills of the Alpes Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France between Nice and Antibes.

Address: 06140 Vence, France (43.72232, 7.1117)

PlaceWithin the historic village, a medieval walled village, there are numerous interesting sights and monuments. The Peyra Gate was remodelled in 1810. The fountain was rebuilt in 1822 replacing an older one dating from 1578. Nearby is an oak, donated by François I and planted in 1538. The castle is today the Fondation Émile Hugues, a modern and contemporary art museum. The cathedral was built in the IV century on the site of a Roman temple. The stone of the western façade dates from 239. Another, on the right, was engraved in December 220. Other stones in the external walls represent funerary dedications. Also on the western side of the church, the Pierre du Tauroble evokes the cult of Cybele and also the Great mother of the Gods of Mount Ida. A chapel in the cathedral has a mosaic by Marc Chagall, dated 1911. The rue des Portiques is a section of the old Roman road. The town has a small chapel, the Cité Historique Chapelle du Rosaire (1948, completed in 1951), decorated with stained glass and other fittings by Henri Matisse, who owned a home in the village towards the end of his life. Vence is famous for its spring water, which can be collected from numerous fountains in the town. American artists and life partners for more than 50 years, Maud Hunt Squire (1873-1954) and Ethel Mars (1876-1959), forged distinguished careers in book illustration, painting, and woodblock printing. Émigrées to France, they frequented Gertrude Stein's salons and, during WWI, were among the Provincetown artists working in new methods of printmaking. Squire and Mars were the subject of Stein's whimsical word portrait "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene" (Squire's nickname was Skeene), written between 1909 and 1911. With characteristic playfulness, Stein in this piece spoofs young ladies who come to Paris to "cultivate something." Stein's incessant reiteration of the word "gay" at a time when its coded meaning was not in mainstream use is interpreted today as an in-group double entendre. At the beginning of WWI, Squire and Mars returned to the U.S. and eventually relocated to Provincetown, Massachusetts. The quaint fishing community at the tip of Cape Cod, with its old-world ambience and affordable rentals, had by this time become an artists' colony, and the international reputations of Squire and Mars attracted other artists to the town. In the 1920s Squire and Mars returned to Europe, eventually settling in Vence on the French Riviera. There Squire and Mars were active in an artists' community that included Marsden Hartley and Reginald Marsh. The couple continued to collaborate on children's book illustration and each again took up painting and drawing. Mars, who concentrated on modernist painting and gouache drawing, exhibited in Paris during the 1920s. Squire concentrated on large-scale watercolors of outdoor public scenes. The couple continued working until about 1930. During WWII, Squire and Mars, then in their sixties, went into hiding near Grenoble. After the war, they returned to their home, La Farigoule, in Vence. Squire died on October 25, 1954; Mars on March 23, 1959. The two women are buried together at Saint Paul de Vence Cemetery (Chemin de Saint-Paul, 06570 Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France).

LifeWho: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930)D.H. Lawrence was in Bandol from October 1929 until February 1930, when he was persuaded to move to Vence to care for his long-neglected tuberculosis. At the Ad Astra sanatorium he was examined and attended by Doctor Madinier. As the news spread that his life was in danger, H.G. Wells and the Aga Khan, called on him, and the American sculptor Jo Davidson made a model of his bust. He did not take kindly to life in the clinic, and left it on March 1st for the Villa Robermond, where he died the next day, in the care of his wife Frieda von Richthofen, of the English writer Aldous Huxley and his Belgian wife Maria Nys.Lawrence was buried in the old Vence cemetery on a March 1930. His remains were exhumed in March 1935 in the presence of Mrs Gordon Crotch, an English resident, and incinerated at Marseille on March 13. A wooden box holding a sealed zinc container in which were his ashes, was then delivered, together with the appropriate transatlantic transport authorization by the Prefecture, dated 14 March, to the former captain of Bersaglieri Angelo Ravagli, at that time the factotum and lover of Lawrence's widow. His mission was to take the ashes to Taos (New Mexico) in "a beautiful vase" specially ordered by Frieda for this purpose. The ashes brought to Taos by Ravagli in grotesque cicumstances were cast by him into the concrete slab of a "shrine" which he built at the Kiowa ranch at San Cristobal near Taos. When Baron de Haulleville and his sister-in-law Rose Nys-de Halleville (who knew Ravagli through the Huxleys) were Ravagli's guests atTaos, Ravagli after partaking from a bottle of bourbon, confessed late one night to having dumped the box and ashes between Marseille and Villefranche-sur-Mer (where he was due to sail on the Conte di Savoia), so as to avoid the expense and trouble of transporting them to the USA. When in New York he collected Frieda's vase, mailed "to be called for" from Marseille, and put into it some locally procured ashes which he took to Taos. The Villa Robermond, later called the Villa Aurella, was demolished and on its site is now a small apartment house, Le Saint Martin, on the Chemin de Clairefontaine, Quartier de Saint Donat, off the road to Grasse. Of the original villa there only remains part of the old entrance gate, under a metal arch. A memorial plate sent by the Broxtowe district council was unveiled on the garden wall in 1985 for the centenary of Lawrence's death. A tombstone decorated with Lawrence's emblem, the Phoenix, designed in seashore pebbles by the Veneois Dominique Matteucci, was saved after the exhumation by Mrs Crotch, who kept it many years in Vence then moved it to England. It was ultimately rescued by professor Vivian de Sola Pinto and taken to Eastwood.

House: In the 1990s Dusty Springfield moved to a house beside the River Thames near Henley-on-Thames. While recording a new album she became ill with cancer. Treatment helped for a while but then her health deteriorated badly. Her OBE was collected on her behalf a few weeks before she died at home in 1999.

LifeWho: Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien OBE (April 16, 1939 – March 2, 1999) aka Dusty Springfield Dusty Springfield was an English pop singer and record producer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s. With her distinctive sensual mezzo-soprano sound, she was an important blue-eyed soul singer and at her peak was one of the most successful British female performers, with six top 20 singles on the United States Billboard Hot 100 and sixteen on the United Kingdom Singles Chart from 1963 to 1989. Her image, supported by a peroxide blonde bouffant hairstyle, evening gowns, and heavy make-up, as well as her flamboyant performances made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties. Some of Springfield's biographers and journalists have speculated that she had two personalities: shy, quiet, Mary O'Brien – and the public face she had created as Dusty Springfield. An editorial review at Publishers Weekly of Valentine and Wickham's 2001 biography, “Dancing with Demons,” finds "the confidence [Springfield] exuded on vinyl was a facade masking severe insecurities, addictions to drink and drugs, bouts of self-harm and fear of losing her career if exposed as a lesbian". Springfield was never reported to be in a heterosexual relationship and this meant that the issue of her sexual orientation was raised frequently during her life. From mid-1966 to the early 1970s Springfield lived in a domestic partnership with fellow singer Norma Tanega. In September 1970, Springfield told Ray Connolly of the Evening Standard: “many other people say I'm bent, and I've heard it so many times that I've almost learned to accept it ... I know I'm perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more people feel that way and I don't see why I shouldn't.” By the standards of 1970, that was a very bold statement. Three years later, she explained to Chris Van Ness of the Los Angeles Free Press: “I mean, people say that I'm gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. I'm not anything. I'm just ... People are people ... I basically want to be straight ... I go from men to women; I don't give a shit. The catchphrase is: I can't love a man. Now, that's my hang-up. To love, to go to bed, fantastic; but to love a man is my prime ambition ... They frighten me.” In the 1970s and 1980s, Springfield became involved in several romantic relationships with women in Canada and the US that were not kept secret from the gay and lesbian community. From late 1972 to 1978, Springfield had an "off and on" domestic relationship with Faye Harris, a US photojournalist. In 1981 she had a six-month love affair with singer-musician Carole Pope of the rock band Rough Trade. In 1982 Springfield met an American actress, Teda Bracci, at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting – in April 1983 the pair moved in together and seven months later they exchanged vows at a wedding ceremony which was not legally recognised under California law. The pair had a "tempestuous" relationship which led to an altercation with both Springfield and Bracci hospitalised – Springfield had been smashed in the mouth by Bracci wielding a saucepan and had teeth knocked out requiring plastic surgery. The pair had separated within two years. Springfield's funeral service was attended by hundreds of fans and people from the music business, including Elvis Costello, Lulu, and Pet Shop Boys. It was a Catholic funeral, which took place in Oxfordshire, at the ancient parish church of St. Mary the Virgin (Hart Street, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, RG9 2AU), where Springfield had lived during her last years. A marker dedicated to her memory was placed in the church graveyard. Springfield was cremated and some of her ashes were buried at Henley, while the rest were scattered by her brother, Tom Springfield, at the Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland.

Miriam Van Waters was a noted early American feminist social worker and served as superintendent of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women at Framingham (1932–1957). Van Waters was also a closeted lesbian during this period, and in fact, it was a 'moral panic' against 'prison lesbianism' that almost led to her dismissal as a superintendent in 1949. Geraldine Morgan Thompson met Miriam Van Waters in the mid-1920s; Thompson was the owner of Brookdale, an 800-acre estate in Red Bank, New Jersey. She was the wife of Lewis S. Thompson, who established Sunny Hill Plantation in 1913. Van Waters and Thompson remained together 40 years and Miriam adopted a little girl named Sarah. When Geraldine died on September 9, 1967, she had lived for ninety-five extraordinarily full years, almost half of them as Miriam van Waters' "Dearest Love" and protector. Waters and Thompson remained lovers, and participated in joint social activities like membership of the Audubon Society. As a small, final tribute, Van Waters wrote an obituary for Thompson in the Framingham News.

House: Sunny Hill Plantation (FL 32309) was a large hunting plantation in northern Leon County. It was established by Lewis S. Thompson in 1913, and was created from the former W. G. Ponder Plantation. Just before WWI, Thompson purchased land to the north swelling the plantation to around 20,000 acres (8,100 ha). Lewis' wife, Geraldine Livingston Morgan (1872-1967) co-owned Brookdale Farm, a thoroughbred horse training facility in Lincroft, New Jersey. Today, Sunny Hill is listed as part of the Audubon Society's Important Bird Areas Of Florida as a conservation easement.

School: Brookdale Community College was founded in July 1967 by the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders, who purchased the Brookdale Farm the following year for the purpose of building a community college for residents.

PlaceThe Brookdale Farm was originally the 800-acre property of horseracing enthusiast David Dunham Withers, a New York resident and one of the original investors of Monmouth Park. Withers raised thoroughbred racehorses on his Brookdale Breeding and Stock Farm, and used the property as his weekend and summer home. After Withers died without heirs in 1892, the Brookdale Farm was purchased by William Payne Thompson for $135,000. The land remained within the Thompson family for many years, and much of the original Brookdale Farm’s 800 acres now comprise Middletown’s Thompson Park, Monmouth County’s Thompson Park, Lincroft Elementary School, Marlu Farm, and the Monmouth Museum – in addition to Brookdale’s 220 acres, which the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders purchased from Lewis S. Thompson Jr. in 1968 for the sum of $700,000. Buying the property, remodeling the century-old horse barns into academic classrooms, appointing a board of trustees, formulating and approving a budget, finding a president, developing curriculum, hiring faculty and staff– nearly two years passed since the initial establishment of Brookdale. The College’s first president, the dynamic Dr. Ervin Harlacher, brought solid experience from his prior position as Acting President of Oakland Community College in California and via his role as one of the nation’s first advocates of the “comprehensive, progressive, and most importantly, open to all, community college.” Brookdale opened in September 1969 with 54 full-time faculty, 306 students with an average age under 21, an impressive roster of transfer and career programs, a non-credit “community services” division, an intercollegiate sports program, and later that month an Anti-Vietnam War rally attended by nearly 300 people.

LifeWho: Geraldine Livingston Morgan Thompson (1872 – September 9, 1967) and Miriam Van Waters (October 4, 1887 – January 17, 1974)Geraldine Thompson was the wife of Lewis S. Thompson, who established Sunny Hill Plantation in 1913. Thompson was a resident of Red Bank, New Jersey. His father was William P. Thompson, an oil man from West Virginia had become treasurer of Standard Oil under John D. Rockefeller. Lewis was a prominent Republican in New Jersey and was a delegate to Republican National Convention from Brookdale, Essex County, N.J. Thompson was also a member in good standing with the Boone and Crockett Club founded by Theodore Roosevelt. Having inherited much of his fortune, Thompson enjoyed outdoor activities of marksmanship, hunting, fishing, and raising dogs. Lewis Thompson died in 1936. Lewis’ wife, Geraldine Livingston Thompson co-owned Brookdale Farm, a thoroughbred horse training facility in Lincroft, New Jersey. Brookdale became Thompson Park in Monmouth County. Mrs. Lewis hosted Ava Alice Muriel Astor as a guest. Miss Astor was the daughter to John Jacob Astor IV who died during the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912. Mrs. Thompson was also active in Republican politics and was a member of the Republican National Committee from Monmouth County, New Jersey and alternate delegate Republican National Convention from New Jersey in 1940, 1948, and 1952. Her lifelong companion was Miriam Van Waters (1887-1974), a noted early feminist social worker who served as superintendent of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women at Framingham (1932–1957.) Van Waters and Thompson remained together 40 years. Geraldine died September 9, 1967 and was buried at St. James’ Churchyard (4526 Albany Post Rd, Hyde Park, NY 12538). When Geraldine died, she had lived for ninety-five extraordinarily full years, almost half of them as Miriam van Waters’ "Dearest Love" and protector. As a small, final tribute, Van Waters wrote an obituary for Thompson in the Framingham News. Miriam is buried at Pine Hill Cemetery (Sherborn, MA 01770).

At ten years old, Horace Walpole was sent to Eton College, where he became part of the "Quadruple Alliance" of sensitive literary friends, which included Thomas Gray, who was to become the most popular poet of the century, Richard West and Thomas Ashton. Gray was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University. He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751. Walpole and Gray remained friends throughout the latter's life, and Walpole continued to champion his poetry and defend him personally in the many years he survived him. When Walpole decided to go travelling on the “Grand Tour” with Gray, he wrote a will whereby he left Gray all his belongings. In Europe the two had a bitter falling out that took years to put behind them. In later life, Walpole admitted that the fault lay primarily with himself: "to have been inattentive and insensible to the feelings of one I thought below me.”

PlaceBerkeley Square is a town square in Mayfair in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. It was originally laid out in the mid XVIII century by architect William Kent. The gardens in the centre are open to the public, and their very large London Plane trees are among the oldest in central London, planted in 1789. Berkeley Square was laid out in the middle of the XVIII century under Robert Walpole, then Prime Minister. At No. 11 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London W1J 6HE, lived his son Horace, from 1779 to 1797; at No. 13 the Marquis of Hertford began to collect what is now the Wallace Collection; at No. 25 lived Charles James Fox; at No. 28 Lord Brougham entertained as Lord Chancellor; at No. 38 Lady Jersey’s dinners and balls were the talk of the town; at No. 45 Lord Clive committed suicide in 1774, and in the corner house on Bruton Street Colly Gibber lived and died. Olive Custance (1874-1944) was born at 12 John St, London WC1N 2EB, the only daughter and heiress of Colonel Frederick Hambleton Custance, who was a wealthy and distinguished soldier in the British army. Whilst Berkeley Square was originally a mostly residential area, there now remains only one residential block on the square – number 48. The square is mostly offices, including a number of hedge funds and wealth management businesses. The square features a sculptural fountain by Alexander Munro, a Pre-Raphaelite sculptor, made in 1865. The buildings around the square include several by other notable architects including Robert Adam, who designed Lansdowne House (since 1935 home of the Lansdowne Club) in the southwest corner of the square on Fitzmaurice Place. The daring staircase-hall of No. 44 is sometimes considered William Kent’s masterpiece. Gunter’s Tea Shop, founded under a different name in 1757, is also located here. 50 Berkeley Square is allegedly haunted; it is currently occupied by Maggs Brothers Antiquarian Booksellers.

LifeWho: Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (September 24, 1717 – March 2, 1797), aka Horace Walpole Horace Walpole was born in 1717 at 17 Arlington St, St. James's, London SW1A 1RJ, the youngest son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and his wife Catherine. Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745) and his son Horace Walpole moved at 5 Arlington St, St. James's, London SW1A 1RA, in 1742. Robert died in 1745, Horave lived there until 1779, where there is a blue plaque to them. Horace Walpole lived for the last fifteen years of his life at No. 11 on the east side of this square, and here he died on the 2nd of March, 1797, a few years after succeeding to the Earldom of Oxford, a title he scarcely ever cared to assume, preferring to be called plain "Horace Walpole" to the end. He thus writes to the Countess of Ossory, under date October, 1779, which fixes the date of his removal hither from Arlington Street, where we have already been introduced to him:—"I came to town this morning to take possession of [my house in] Berkeley Square, and am as well pleased with my new habitation as I can be with anything at present. Lady Shelburne’s being queen of the palace over against me (he is referring, of course, to Lansdowne House) has improved the view since I bought the house, and I trust will make your ladyship not so shy as you were in Arlington Street." Walpole was attacked at Strawberry Hill by the cold, about the close of November, 1796, and at the end of that month he removed to his house in Berkeley Square, which he never left again. On this cold supervened an attack of gout. He still amused himself with writing and dictating brief notes, instead of letters, and with the conversation of his friends; and, exhausted by weakness, sunk gradually and died painlessly, on the 2nd of the following March. On the death of Horace Walpole, the house passed to his niece, Lady Waldegrave, who was living here at the beginning of the XIX century. It has been said of Horace Walpole, with some justice, by Mr. Charles Knight: "The chief value of his letters consists in his lively descriptions of those public events whose nicer details, without such a chronicler, would be altogether hid under the varnish of what we call history."

Historic District: Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was built under the direction of the architect John Nash. The street runs from Waterloo Place in St James's at the southern end, through Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, to All Soul's Church. From there Langham Place and Portland Place continue the route to Regent's Park.

Address: Regent Street, London W1B, UK

Place• The Langham, London (1C Portland Pl, Marylebone, London W1B 1JA) is one of the largest and best known traditional style grand hotels in London. It is in the district of Marylebone on Langham Place and faces up Portland Place towards Regent's Park. It is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World marketing consortium. Since the XIX century the hotel developed an extensive American clientele, which included Mark Twain and the miserly multi-millionairess, Hetty Green. It was also patronised by the likes of Napoleon III, Oscar Wilde, Antonín Dvořák, and Arturo Toscanini. Arthur Conan Doyle set Sherlock Holmes stories such as “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Sign of Four” partly at the Langham. The Langham continued throughout the XX century to be a favoured spot with members of the royal family, such as Diana, Princess of Wales, and many high-profile politicians including Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Other guests included Noël Coward, Wallis Simpson, Don Bradman, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, W. Somerset Maugham and Ayumi Hamasaki. Guy Burgess (1911-1963), one of the “Cambridge Five”, a spying ring who fed official secrets to the Soviets during the Cold War, stayed at the Langham while working for the BBC. • Horace Walpole (1717-1797) lived in 1743 at 5 Portland Pl, Marylebone, London W1B 1PW. • Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883), English writer and translator, lived at 39 Portland Pl, Marylebone, London W1B 1QQ, in his childhood. He married Lucy, the daughter of the Quaker poet Bernard Barton in Chichester on 4 November 1856, following a death bed promise to Bernard made in 1849 to look after her. The newly married pair went to Brighton, and then settled for a time at 31 Great Portland St, Fitzrovia, London W1W 8QG. A few days of married life were enough to disillusionise FitzGerald. The marriage was evidently unhappy, for the couple separated after only a few months, despite having known each other for many years, including collaborating on a book about her father's works in 1849.• Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was evicted by his landlords as they had heared that he planned to exhibt "erotic" paintings at 2 All Souls' Pl, Marylebone, London W1B 3DA. • While Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1862-1932) was at Charterhouse, his family moved from Hanwell to a house behind All Souls Church in Langham Place (1 All Souls' Pl, Marylebone, London W1B 3DA).

PlaceHorace Walpole rebuilt the existing house in stages starting in 1749, 1760, 1772 and 1776. Strawberry Hill House — often called simply Strawberry Hill — is the Gothic Revival villa that was built in Twickenham, London by Horace Walpole from 1749. It is the type example of the "Strawberry Hill Gothic" style of architecture, and it prefigured the XIX century Gothic revival. Walpole added gothic features such as towers and battlements outside and elaborate decoration inside to create "gloomth" to suit Walpole’s collection of antiquarian objects, contrasting with the more cheerful or "riant" garden. The interior included a Robert Adam fireplace; parts of the exterior were designed by James Essex. The garden contained a large seat shaped like a Rococo sea shell; it has been recreated in the 2012 restoration. The South part of the North East wing was built in 1698 but when the property came into the possession of Horace Walpole in 1747 it was described by him as a cottage. It was converted into a “Gothic” building by him and added to, and nothing of earlier date than his reconstruction is visible outside. Inside the building some of the original chamfered ceiling-beams are exposed and many of the windows contain continental painted glass, mostly of the XVII century. After a £9 million, two-year-long restoration, Strawberry Hill House reopened to the public on Saturday October 2, 2010. In 2013, Strawberry Hill House won the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage in the Europa Nostra Awards. The Walpole Trust re-opened Strawberry Hill to the public on March 1, 2015. Teddington is a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, south west London. Historically in the former county of Middlesex, it is on the north bank of the Thames though faces the other way being just after the start of a long meander, between Hampton Wick and the equally affluent area of Strawberry Hill, Twickenham.

LifeWho: Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (September 24, 1717 – March 2, 1797), aka Horace Walpole At 10 years old, Horace Walpole was sent to Eton College, where he became part of the “Quadruple Alliance” with Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Richard West and Thomas Ashton. Walpole and Gray remained friends throughout the latter’s life, and Walpole continued to champion his poetry and defend him personally in the many years he survived him. When Walpole decided to go travelling on the Grand Tour with Gray, he wrote a will whereby he left Gray all his belongings. In Europe the two had a bitter falling out that took years to put behind them. In later life, Walpole admitted that the fault lay primarily with himself: “to have been inattentive and insensible to the feelings of one I thought below me.” Walpole left his London villa, Strawberry Hill, to Anne Seymour Damer (1749-1828), Mary Berry (1763-1852) and Mary’s sister, Agnes, to live there for all their life. A number of sources have named Damer as being involved in lesbian relationships, particularly relating to her close friendship with Mary Berry, to whom she had been introduced by Horace Walpole in 1789. Mary Berry was the last to survive, and at her death, the 6th earl of Waldegrave, as it was in Horace Walpole’s will, inherited Strawberry Hill, Twickenham (hence the name of Waldegrave Road, which connects Strawberry Hill with Teddington), but his son, George Edward, the 7th earl (1816–1846), was obliged in 1842 to sell the valuable treasures collected there. In 1923 the empty villa was bought by St Mary’s University, Twickenham. In 2007, it was leased to the Strawberry Hill Trust for restoration and eventual opening to the public.

PlaceBuilt in the XVIII century, Design by James Gibbs (1682-1754)It was built for the de facto first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and it is a key building in the history of Palladian architecture in England. It is surrounded by 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) of parkland adjacent to Sandringham House. The house has a rectangular main block which consists of a rustic basement at ground level, with a piano nobile, bedroom floor and attics above. There are also two lower flanking wings joined to the main block by colonnades. To the south of the house there is a detached quadrangular stable block. The exterior is both grand and restrained, constructed of fine-grained, silver-white stone. The Gibbs-designed domes punctuate each corner. In line with Palladian conventions, the interiors are much more colourful, exuberant and opulent than the exteriors. The parklands surrounding Houghton was redesigned in the XVIII century by Charles Bridgeman. In the process, the village of Houghton was demolished and rebuilt outside the park, with the exception of the medieval parish church, which was heavily restored. This new building was placed on the site of earlier Walpole family houses.

LifeWho: Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (September 24, 1717 – March 2, 1797), aka Horace WalpoleSir Robert Walpole became the 1st Earl of Orford in 1742. Ownership of Houghton Hall passed to his son and grandson, the 2nd and 3rd earls. On the death of the 3rd earl it reverted to his uncle the 4th Earl of Orford, better known as Horace Walpole. On his death in 1797, possession passed to the family of his sister, Lady Cholmondeley, who died at just 26 years in 1731, more than 65 years before. Sir Robert Walpole’s daughter, Mary, had married George Cholmondeley, 3rd Earl of Cholmondeley and Houghton Hall was modified and maintained by her Cholmondeley family across a further span of generations. Colonel Robert Walpole borrowed a book about the Archbishop of Bremen from the Sidney Sussex College library in 1667 or 1668. The overdue library book was discovered at Houghton in the mid-1950s, and returned 288 years later. The house has remained largely untouched, having remained "unimproved" despite the Victorian passion for remodelling and redecorating. Houghton still belongs to the Marquess of Cholmondeley, and parts of the structure and grounds are opened to the public throughout the year. Horace Walpole is buried at St Martin (Houghton Park, Houghton-next-Harpley, Houghton, Norfolk, PE31 6TY), in the Walpole family vault.

John Gray was an English poet whose works include Silverpoints, The Long Road and Park: A Fantastic Story. It has often been suggested that he was the inspiration behind Oscar Wilde's fictional Dorian Gray. Gray's life partner was Marc-Andre Raffalovich, a wealthy poet and early defender of homosexuality. On November 28, 1898, at the age of 32, Gray entered the Scots College, Rome, to study for the priesthood. Cardinal Pietro Respighi at St John Lateran ordained him on December 21, 1901. Raffalovich himself became a Catholic in 1896 and joined the tertiary order of Dominicans. When Gray went to Edinburgh, Raffalovich settled nearby. He helped finance St Peter's Church in Morningside where Gray would serve as priest for the rest of his life. The two maintained a chaste relationship until Raffalovich's sudden death in 1934. A devastated Gray died exactly four months later at St. Raphael's nursing home in Edinburgh after a short illness. The critic, Valentine Cunningham, has described Gray as the "stereotypical poet of the nineties“.

House: John Gray (1866-1934) was born at 2 Vivian Rd, London E3 5RF, a working-class area in the East End of London, "Mean streets of semi-detached houses of dull uniformity." Most of the inhabitants, so it seems, were industrious, provident, house-proud, typical altogether of the superior artisan class. A few years later the family moved to 96 Eglinton Rd, Woolwich, London SE18 3SY. His father, another John Gray, was successively a wheelwright in Woolwich Dockyard and inspector of stores at Woolwich Arsenal.

House: In 1882, aged eighteen, Marc André Raffalovich (1864-1934) moved to London with his governess, Miss Florence Truscott Gribbell (c.1842-1930), with the intention of studying at the University of Oxford. Instead, he settled at 72 S Audley St, Mayfair, London W1K 1JB, with the intention of setting up a salon. Unlike his mother, he was not entirely successful. It was during his time in London that he was introduced to the poet and writer John Gray, through Arthur William Symons (1865–1945), literary scholar and author. They were to remain close friends and companions throughout the next forty years, dying within months of each other.

PlaceWhile John Gray studied in Rome, Marc-André Raffalovich and Miss Florence Truscott Gribbell (the daughter of a Scottish bank manager and Marc-André’s former governess) spent part of each year in Edinburgh, and in 1905, they moved to Morningside, to 9 Whitehouse Terrace, where Raffalovich’s longed-for salon was finally established. “A place of intellectualism and faded decandence,” according to John Kemplay. For 25 years, until Miss Gribbell’s death in 1930, Raffalovich’s Sunday luncheon and Tuesday dinner parties were established features of the city’s social life. His home was last on the market in 2013 and sold for £2,800,000.

LifeWho: John Gray (March 2, 1866 – June 14, 1934) and Marc-André Raffalovich (September 11, 1864 – February 14, 1934)Marc-André Raffalovich was a French poet and writer on homosexuality, best known today for his patronage of the arts and for his lifelong relationship with the poet John Gray. Marc-André went up to study in Oxford in 1882 before settling down in London and opening a salon in the 1890s. Oscar Wilde attended, calling the event a saloon rather than a salon. This is where Raffalovich met the love and companion of his life, John Gray. In 1890, his sister Sophie married the Irish nationalist politician William O’Brien (1852–1928.) In 1896, under the influence of John Gray, Raffalovich embraced Catholicism and joined the tertiary order of the Dominicans as Brother Sebastian in honour of Saint Sebastian. At the same time Gray was ordained a priest. In 1905, Gray was appointed to the parish of St Patrick in the working class Cowgate area of Edinburgh. Raffalovich followed and settled down nearby, purchasing No. 9, Whitehouse Terrace. He contributed greatly to the cost of St Peter’s Church in Morningside, Edinburgh, of which Gray was appointed the first parish priest.

PlaceBuilt in 1905, Design by Sir Robert Lorimer (1864-1929)The church was opened on 25 April 1907. The idea was conceived by Fr. John Gray, at the time curate at St. Patrick’s Church (40 High St, Old Town, Edinburgh EH1 1TQ), together with Marc-André Raffalovitch. On a painting inside the church, an angel with raised and partially spread wings and head bowed to right shoulder is holding a model of the Presbytery, whilst kneeling on left leg on what appears to be a coiled serpent. A large flowering plant rises vertically on the angel’s right from a two-handled vase. The work is housed in a stepped niche. In 1906, John Gray was appointed the first parish priest of St. Peter’s church in Edinburgh, which was a huge change of professional environment for him – from shabby Cowgate to affluent Morningside. His friend Raffalovich financed the building of the church in Falcon Avenue, completed in 1907. John Duncan was commissioned to paint the Stations of the Cross for the church, and was often among the guests at Raffalovich’s parties. The paintings were sold around 1965 and their present whereabouts is unknown. One visitor to the church buildings in Falcon Avenue later remembered: “The whole house was in a dim, mysterious, and elusive twilight. It was a world of half-tones: in fact it only needed an invisible gramophone playing Debussy or bits from Maeterlinck to make it quite perfect. To think of “Pellèas et Mèlisande” or “Le Cathèdrale englouti” is to capture the impression of St. Peter’s presbytery – and its creator.” Anson, 1963.

LifeWho: John Gray (March 2, 1866 – June 14, 1934) and Marc-André Raffalovich (September 11, 1864 – February 14, 1934)John Gray was a poet whose works include “Silverpoints,” “The Long Road” and “Park: A Fantastic Story.” Gray is best known today as an aesthetic poet of the 1890s and as a friend of Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde. He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French Symbolists Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Jules Laforgue and Arthur Rimbaud into English, often for the first time. He is purported to be the inspiration behind the title character in Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” but distanced himself from this rumour. In fact, Wilde’s story was serialised in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine a year before their relationship began. His relationship with Wilde was initially intense, but had cooled for over two years by the time of Wilde’s imprisonment. The relationship appears to have been at its height in the period 1891-1893. In 1882 he passed the Civil Service exams and, five years later, the University of London matriculation exams. He joined the Foreign Office where he became a librarian. He left his position at the Foreign Office on 28 November 1898, at the age of 32, and he entered the Scots College, Rome, to study for the priesthood. He was ordained by Cardinal Pietro Respighi at St John Lateran on 21 December 1901. He served as a priest in Edinburgh, first at Saint Patrick’s and then as rector at Saint Peter’s. John Gray was to become a close friend of the “Michael Fields” – Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper. His most important supporter, and life partner, was Marc-André Raffalovich, a wealthy poet and early defender of homosexuality. Raffalovich himself became a Catholic in 1896 and joined the tertiary order of Dominicans. When Gray went to Edinburgh he settled nearby. He helped finance St Peter’s Church in Morningside where Gray would serve as priest for the rest of his life. In 1930, Gray was installed as canon in St. Mary’s cathedral (35 Manor Pl, Edinburgh EH3 7EB). The two maintained a chaste relationship until Raffalovich’s sudden death in 1934. A devastated Gray died exactly four months later at St. Raphael’s nursing home in Edinburgh after a short illness.

PlaceThe land now known as Mount Vernon Cemetery was previously known as the “Lands of Nellfield” and in 1827 was renamed by the then owners as “Mount Vernon”.

LifeWho: John Gray (March 2, 1866 – June 14, 1934) and Marc-André Raffalovich (September 11, 1864 – February 14, 1934)Given his close and intense friendship with Canon John Gray, Raffalovich is buried as close as possible to him. His tombstone reads: IN PEACE + MARC ANDRE SEBASTIAN RAFFALOVICH 11TH SEPTEMBER 1864 + 14TH FEBRUARY 1934. John Gray is probably buried in the Priests' Circle as he was the founder and first priest of St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, Falcon Road.

Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason were artists, actresses and occasional house painters, staying together for 59 years. Known to friends and family as "Willie," Wilna Hervey grew up in affluent circumstances at Beach Ninth Street, Far Rockaway. 6’3” Wilna found some success in silent films, playing rugged mountain girls and other hardy characters. In 1919, she was cast in the role of The Powerful Katrinka in The Toonerville Trolley silent film series based on Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Folks comic strip. While Hervey was in Pennsylvania working on the production, she met the painter Nan Mason, the daughter of her co-star Dan Mason, who played the Skipper. Nan and Hervey became life partners, remaining together until Hervey's death in 1979. Wilna studied art with Winold Reiss, and Nan performed music for Edward Weston and Johan Hagemeyer. Around 1919-1920, Hervey's father bought her a studio in Bearsville, New York. She and Nan Mason split their time between painting and farming in Woodstock, New York, and pursuing acting opportunities in California, from 1922 to 1929. They became popular members of the Woodstock artists’ community, and both found some artistic success there during the 1960s. During the harsh New York winters, they also spent time in Carmel, California and Manatee County, Florida.

Cemetery: The town has long been a mecca for artists, musicians, and writers, even before the music festival made the name "Woodstock" famous. The town has a separate "Artist's Cemetery". Film and art festivals attract big names, and hundreds of musicians have come to Woodstock to record.

PlaceThe first non-indigenous settler arrived around 1770. The Town of Woodstock was established in 1787. Later, Woodstock contributed some of its territory to form the towns of Middletown (1789), Windham (1798), Shandaken (1804), and Olive (1853). Woodstock played host to numerous Hudson River School painters during the late 1800s. The Arts and Crafts Movement came to Woodstock in 1902, with the arrival of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, Bolton Brown and Hervey White, who formed the Byrdcliffe Colony. In 1906, L. Birge Harrison and others founded the Summer School of the Art Students League of New York in the area, primarily for landscape painting. Ever since, Woodstock has been considered an active artists colony. From 1915 through 1931, Hervey White's Maverick Art Colony held the Maverick Festivals, "in which hundreds of free spirits gathered each summer for music, art, theater and drunken orgies in the woods."A series of Woodstock Sound-Outs were staged at Pan Copeland's Farm just over the town line in Saugerties from 1967 to 1970. These featured folk and rock acts like Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, Dave van Ronk and Van Morrison and were identified with Woodstock's reputation as a summer arts colony. The Sound-Outs inspired the original Woodstock Festival's organizers to plan their concert at the Winston Farm in Saugerties; however, the town turned down their permit, and the "Woodstock" Festival was actually held almost 60 miles (97 km) away at Max Yasgur's Farm in the Sullivan County town of Bethel. Woodstock is also home to the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Buddhist monastery, situated at the top of Mead's Mountain Road.

LifeWho: Wilna "Willie" Hervey (October 3, 1894 – March 6, 1979) and Nan Mason (July 17, 1896 – March 2, 1982). Nan Mason was a member of the Woodstock Artist Colony but spent time in Carmel, California as well. As a painter, she was surrounded by her contemporaries and learned well from their interactions. Nan rests beside her partner of 59 years, Wilna Hervey, actress and Artist. Hervey appeared in a number of silent films, most notably the "Toonerville Trolley" comedies made by the Betzwood Film Company in Pennsylvania in 1920. At 6'3" and weighing nearly 300 pounds, she was perfect in the role of "Powerful Katrinka," one of the most popular characters of the "Toonerville" film series.She came from a very wealthy family and when her movie career ended in 1922, she purchased a farm in Bearsville, NY 12409, near Woodstock and lived there with her life partner, Nan Mason, for most of the rest of her life. As an artist, Wilna Hervey is best remembered for tiny exquisite enamel paintings done in a technique she pioneered. "I'm a big woman, but I want my pictures to be small," she was fond of saying. Her partner, Nan Mason concentrated on painting and photography. Both "Willie" and Nan became beloved members of the artists community that was centered in Woodstock. Well known for their eccentricities, their generosity, and the wild parties they threw, Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason are still fondly remembered in Woodstock today.

House: Norman St John-Stevas (1929–2012) loved beautiful places – Venice and Rome were particular favourites – and attractive things. His Knightsbridge house at 34 Montpelier Square, Knightsbridge, London SW7 1JY, contained a large collection of Victoriana. Visitors were sometimes astonished to call on him in late morning and be welcomed by St John-Stevas in an imperial purple dressing gown. He died in March 2012 from undisclosed causes, aged 82. His homosexuality was summarised by Simon Hoggart in The Guardian obituary note: "He lived in that period where gay politicians never came "out", yet were happy for everyone to know. He lived life as a camp performance."

House: Norman St John-Stevas (1929-2012) was a British politician, author, and barrister. St John-Stevas stood down from the House of Commons at the 1987 general election, being created a life peer in the House of Lords with the title Baron St John of Fawsley of Preston Capes in the County of Northamptonshire in 1987. A loyal monarchist, Lord St John enjoyed a close relationship with the British Royal Family. Soon after his elevation to the Lords, photographs of him in purple bedroom slippers appeared in Hello! magazine while he lounged in the bedroom of his Northampton rectory with a signed photograph of Princess Margaret prominently displayed. The Old Rectory, Preston Capes (1 Church Way, Preston Capes, Daventry NN11 3TE, English Heritage Building ID: 360597 (Grade II, 1987)) is a former rectory. Early XVIII century with earlier origins and large XIX century additions. Coursed ironstone rubble, red brick, hipped slate roofs, various brick lateral, ridge and end stacks. 2 storeys and attic. Stone-built core has two 3-light leaded casement windows with timber lintels to ground and first floors to front facing village and a small roof dormer. A part-glazed plank door to right side. Another stone range projects right towards rear of right side with a glazed door immediately to right but largely hidden by slightly lower early XIX century brick front range with 3-light leaded casement windows with pointed arch heads and hood moulds, to ground and first floors. Right end of 2nd stone wing facing garden has a 4-light painted stone arch-mullion window to ground floor, an early XIX century brick porch with panelled door and fanlight to right and similar 3-light window to first floor. Behind this wing and facing garden a large early XIX century brick range of 3 windows with 15-pane sashes and segmental heads. Other sash windows of 12-panes, leaded wood mullion and transom windows and casement windows to rear and side facing churchyard. St John-Stevas’s partner of over fifty years was Adrian Stanford. They met each other in 1956 at Oxford, where Lord St John taught Stanford law. They entered into a civil partnership shortly before Lord St John's death in order to avoid paying inheritance tax, which would have taxed 40% of his £3.3 million estate.

Renata Borgatti was an Italian classical musician, performing in Europe and the United States. She settled in Capri in the early 1900s, where her lifestyle raised fewer eyebrows than elsewhere in Europe. In 1918, she entered into a lesbian affair with Italian socialite, and baroness, Mimì Franchetti. The two remained together for just over a year, until Franchetti left Capri and linked with the prominent American artist Romaine Brooks. Borgatti had an affair with Faith Stone, whose husband Sir Compton Mackenzie wrote the satirical roman à clef Extraordinary Women, about a group of lesbians arriving on the island of Sirene, a fictional version of Capri. In 1920, she herself began a liaison with Brooks, who was by that time pursuing a relationship with the American writer Natalie Clifford Barney. Borgatti's affair with Brooks proceeded on and off for at least three years, but was curtailed when Brooks began avoiding her. During the early-1920s, she became intimately involved with Winnaretta Singer (who previously was as well involved with Brooks), heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune.

Cemetery: Renata Borgatti (1894-1964) is buried in the Palestrina cemetery (Via Santa Maria, 00036 Palestrina RM). Renata Borgatti was an Italian classical musician, performing in Europe and the United States. A lesbian, she settled on the Mediterranean island of Capri in the early 1900s, where her lifestyle raised fewer eyebrows than elsewhere in Europe. In 1918, she entered into a lesbian affair with an Italian socialite (and baroness) Mimì Franchetti. The two remained together for just over a year, until Franchetti left Capri and linked with the prominent American artist Romaine Brooks. Borgatti had an affair with Faith Mackenzie, whose husband Compton Mackenzie wrote of the island's lesbian residents in the 1928 satirical roman à clef “Extraordinary Women,” about a group of lesbians arriving on the island of Sirene, a fictional version of Capri. In 1920, Borgatti left Capri to pursue her career on the European mainland. She also began a romantic liaison with Brooks, who was by that time pursuing a relationship with the American writer Natalie Barney. Borgatti's affair with Brooks proceeded on and off for at least three years, but was curtailed when Brooks began avoiding her. During the early-1920s, she became intimately involved with Winnaretta Singer, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune. She performed on stage with the violinist Olga Rudge during this period. They worked frequently together, despite the presence of Rudge's lover, the famous poet Ezra Pound, who was then working as a music critic and was not impressed by Borgatti's playing.